ACCESS AND QUALITY OF HEALTH CARE SYSTEM BY OPINION OF PATIENTS IN TEN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Abstract

The aim of the study is to evaluate the access and quality of health care systems by the opinion of the patients in 10 European countries. Methods. Systematic review and comparative analysis of the data from the European surveys, published since 2007 till 2010 were used in order to compare the indicators of patient’s satisfaction with the access and quality of health care system in 10 EU countries: Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, UK and Slovenia. The systematic review inclusion criteria were: systematic review has to be performed in the latest available year, but not earlier than 2007, representative sample of the public opinion survey; the study had to be performed on an international scale (i.e. in all comparative countries), target groups of the study had to be the all users of health care services. Two groups of indicators were assessed: access and quality by the variables examined in the selected studies. Overall evaluation was made by the value for money adjusted evaluation score using scatter diagram in the SPSS statistical package program. Facts and findings. The majority of the respondents in Austria and Sweden rate their healthcare system as good, but only a quarter of respondents in Romania and less than a half in Lithuania consider the quality of healthcare in their country as good or very good. It could be possible, that the financial and economic crisis has influenced those results. The access to health care is best evaluated by patients in Austria and Germany, the worst - in Latvia, Romania, Lithuania and Estonia. Sweden provides the worst access to family doctors, Estonia - to the hospitals among the all evaluated countries. Conclusion. The overall assessment of quality and access in ten selected European countries considering value for money-adjusted evaluation shows that the leading countries in terms of health care quality are Austria, Denmark and Germany, whereas the worst quality is evaluated in Latvia, Romania, Lithuania and Estonia. In terms of health care access the leading three countries are still the same - Germany Austria and Denmark, while Lithuania, Latvia and Romania are estimated as most lagging behind.